Chapter 96 (1/2): Si Xinyan’s Past Life

As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but emptiness.

The tingling and trembling in my heart all pointed to one undeniable fact—I was being watched by some supreme, majestic existence in this world.

Clap.

Clap clap clap clap—

In the faint distance, I seemed to hear the sound of waves crashing against the rocks.

The soulmate trial consisted of only two stages.

The first was a test of fate; the second, a test of the heart.

Though it seemed incredibly simple, these four words were like an insurmountable chasm, impossible to cross.

Fate.

It wasn’t just fate in this life, but also past lives’ fate, even fate spanning three lifetimes.

If one failed, the trial would be immediately terminated.

Enveloped by endless rules, two completely different images appeared within the light screen in the sky.

Those were projections of two people’s past lives.

Su Liumeng’s image, however, was just a chaotic void—seemingly nothing at all.

“Nothing at all? How is that possible?”

Someone on the high platform stood up in shock.

The most impossible thing was unfolding right before their eyes.

One person spoke the truth, “Could it be—Su Liumeng has no past life?”

Some were silently stunned, recalling an entry from an ancient text.

“The legend says that any living being must have a first life.”

“That first life is called the Innate Spirit. All subsequent reincarnations are essentially the cycle of the true spirit’s immortality.”

“Countless reincarnations later, only the first life is called the Innate Spirit. As time passes, the Innate Spirit grows dimmer, losing its mystique until it finally blends in with the ordinary.”

“It’s been 3.5 billion years since life first appeared. Although countless beings exist in this world, there hasn’t been another Innate Spirit born according to the ancient records.”

“After so many reincarnations, how could there still be anything supernatural?”

A being without a past life.

An Innate Spirit.

These four words caused everyone’s pupils to tremble uncontrollably.

Who would have guessed Su Liumeng’s background was so immense?

The Grand Elder roughly grabbed Su Qinghe and solemnly asked, “Qinghe, be honest with me. Is Yu Xi truly your and Jiang Yue’s biological daughter?”

A flicker of hesitation in Su Qinghe’s eyes instantly deflated the Grand Elder’s spirit, and he loosened his grip on the collar.

“Forget it, don’t mention this again… She belongs to the Su family, and always has. Remember that.”

Su Qinghe lowered his head in silence.

At this moment, many of those who had doubted Su Liumeng began to waver, quietly discussing the scene they had just witnessed.

Of course, some remained skeptical.

The head of the Su family was among them.

“Everyone, don’t panic. There’s another explanation for this. Perhaps Su Liumeng died too early in her past life. The image we saw was just the beginning, and before more could appear, her soul dispersed. After all, no one has ever seen what an Innate Spirit looks like. We can’t just say that no past life images means she is an Innate Spirit.”

Once this was said, several sect leaders nodded in agreement.

This incredibly bizarre scene was too unbelievable to accept as reality, so many remained doubtful.

If an Innate Spirit had truly been born in the past 3.5 billion years, it would be a world-shattering event.

That would raise a question: did this Innate Spirit appear only in modern times, or had it existed since 3.5 billion years ago, waiting until human civilization appeared before finally merging with its mother’s embryo?

Either scenario was terrifying.

Who wouldn’t be shaken by such thoughts?

If the former, an Innate Spirit dormant for billions of years suddenly reappearing in modern times would signal a fundamental shift in the world.

If the latter, the implications were even more chilling.

Waiting in endless void until human civilization, only then to descend into an embryo.

What exactly had it been waiting for through all those endless years?

The Fourth Elder was probably the calmest among them, staring at the two screens in the sky.

“No matter which outcome is true, it means these two have no past-life connection. This soulmate trial is doomed to fail; the images will soon be cut off entirely.”

Indeed.

How could a person without a past life form any connection with a girl who did have one?

The Grand Elder’s heart suddenly sank.

Only he knew just how much Yu Xi cared about Si Xinyan. If the soulmate trial failed at the first stage, who knew how badly she might break down.

At that moment,

in the image on the right side of the sky, a true world slowly took shape.

It was a deep blue world, with endless waves surging and crashing.

The sky was an unchanging dark blue-black, and not a single island was in sight—only endless, billowing ocean swells, folding like layers of wrinkles.

Oppression and solitude seemed the only melodies of this world, while the deep sea’s silence sounded like a monstrous maw, ready to swallow anyone who dared enter.

Anyone trapped in such an environment long enough would be driven mad by its crushing weight.

Crash—

Endless waves crashed against a reef.

The crowd on the viewing platform fell silent.

Because there was no sign of life anywhere in this image.

What kind of being was Si Xinyan’s past life?

Suddenly, the Grand Elder noticed a detail.

Although the scene looked vast and grand, the focus remained fixed on one spot.

More precisely, it lingered near a certain reef.

All the surging seawater, just before crashing onto the reef, would even show a close-up of the spot.

Could it be…?

Everyone held their breath as a wildly unimaginable theory sprang to mind.

Could it be—

This girl’s past life had been parasitic on this inconspicuous reef?

The Grand Elder wiped his cloudy eyes and, like others who shared this guess, stared unblinking at the reef on the screen.

Yet—

Even as the reef rotated a full 360 degrees with the tides,

no one could detect even a patch of moss clinging to the stone, let alone any creature with limbs.

Past lives.

Present lives.

Since this was a visual test, there had to be a past life.

But—

There was nothing at all in the image!!

The Grand Elder wasn’t the only one silently going mad.

Many of these people were century-old veterans, not strangers to soulmate trials, yet they had never seen such an odd image.

Even after searching ancient texts, no similar case was found.

“Hiss—”

The Su family head suddenly gasped.

His normally calm expression momentarily cracked.

“Could it really be…?” He thought of the most unlikely truth, then immediately dismissed it based on reason.

Because—

It was simply too incredible.

Many looked confused, like lost migratory birds, unable to tell north from south.

“Calm down.” The Grand Elder cleared his throat, signaling everyone to stay composed.

Shock aside, the image continued to unfold.

Since the first test of the Heavenly Dao was not over, it meant the two’s past lives hadn’t yet reached their destined end.

Which was strange.

One person’s image was a chaotic void with no past life at all.

The other’s was a vast ocean, but with nothing to see except rolling waves.

Both were unusually strange.

By rights, the past life connection should have ended immediately when Su Liumeng’s lack of a past life was revealed.

Yet the image didn’t end.

This baffling scene left the century-old veterans utterly perplexed and lost.

So—

Where was the little girl?

The timeline on the screen continued moving forward.

At this point—

The Sixth Elder’s eyes widened, suddenly realizing a detail everyone had overlooked.

“Everyone, have you noticed? The image always centers on this reef. No matter where the waves come from, whenever they hit this reef, there’s always a special focus on it.”

Gulp—

The Grand Elder was the first to swallow his saliva.

They were all shrewd veterans, and needed no further explanation to guess what was coming next.

The truth seemed to have only one—absurd—possible explanation.

No one dared to think it through completely, because it was beyond belief.

How could it be possible?

How could a living person have been a rock in their past life?

The Grand Elder stroked his beard, almost pulling out some of his white whiskers.

The pain didn’t stop his shocked gaze or his hunger to reveal the truth.

“Could it be…?”

“The little girl Su Liumeng brought back was, in her past life, a reef rock in the deep sea?”

At these words, everyone fell silent.

The Grand Elder was the first to voice this theory, his tone trembling slightly.

To be honest, he was the least convinced himself.

The Grand Elder was a man of vast experience; he had never encountered anything this bizarre.

The world is vast, and nothing is impossible.

But this was beyond even that.

All things have souls, but that only applies to plants and animals.

When had a rock ever possessed a soul?

A dead object remains dead its entire life.

A rock is a rock and can never be linked with the word ‘spirit’!

Others thought similarly.

But reality left them no choice but to believe.

The only focus in the images and countless overlooked details could only lead to one—

Ridiculous truth.

“How could a person’s past life be a rock?”

“In other words, how could a rock have intelligence?”

Many whispered amongst themselves.

Only the Fourth Elder said nothing, moving a few steps closer and staring fixedly at the screen as if fascinated by something.

At the bottom of the image was something like a timeline.

Every tick represented ten years.

As the crowd whispered, the timeline had already jumped ten ticks forward, meaning the world in the image had advanced one hundred years.

A mortal’s life spans no more than a century.

Ten ticks was only a tiny fraction of that.

And yet, watching Si Xinyan’s past life, less than the time of a tea break had passed and the scene had moved a hundred years ahead.

Compared to previous mortal life images, the massive time leaps stunned many.

“How fleeting and insignificant a mortal’s life is.”

“Indeed. Compared to a rock, unchanging for millennia, a human life is short but full of brilliance and meaning—not like a rock that remains static for eons.”

The image continued to develop.

At first, people marveled at the passage of time, but soon grew numb.

Because within mere moments of speech, three hundred years had passed.

The scene remained unchanged; the reef was still the same reef, every edge and corner exactly as before.

Hundreds of years of waves had rolled by, but not even a single protrusion had been worn down.

The Third Elder secretly sighed.

Perhaps overwhelmed by shock, he tried to rationalize the confusion for himself, explaining aloud, “No change is actually quite normal. It’s just a rock. Perhaps by the time we first saw it, it had already been weathered by wind and rain for many years. Three hundred more years without smoothing its edges is quite reasonable.”

At these words, the Fifth Elder, sitting nearby, was the first to break her usual stoic demeanor.

The old woman had not smiled for many years, but now her wrinkled face blossomed like a flower.

“Cousin, what you just said… why does it sound so funny?”

“To be honest, I still don’t believe this girl’s past life was a rock.”

“If you said she was a plant, I might accept it. But a reef rock? That’s just ridiculous.”

“……”